Celebritology 2.0 Archive: Celebritology Weekend

Emma Watson at the London premiere. (AP) When a trailer for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1” debuted online over the summer, the members of Hogwarts Nation went into a frenzy. If a mere preview can cause that much excitable chatter, the Horcrux fervor will undoubtedly escalate this week, when the first part of the franchise’s final chapter opens in U.S. theaters. A splashy premiere, with red carpet appearances from all-grown-up stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, was held Thursday night in London, and will be followed by another on Monday in New York’s Lincoln Square. And according to data from MovieTickets.com and Fandango.com, advance ticket sales for the film-- which opens Friday, with a flurry of midnight screenings -- are outpacing sales for all previous Potter films. In other words, expect pop culture conversation, media coverage and box office revenues to be dominated by...

Three celeb-centric stories on our radar this weekend... Tom Hanks with then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2008. (Reuters) 1. Tom Hanks for president? If Democrats want to regain their political footing after that less than stellar performance on Election Day, they need some help from celebrities. That's one suggestion filmmaker Michael Moore made during an appearance on MSNBC this week. "Seriously, if we ran Tom Hanks, if we ran Oprah [Winfrey] -- there's a whole column of people who are beloved people, who are smart, good," said Moore in an appearance on “The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell.” “Why don't [the Democrats] make use of all the great communicators in Hollywood to help fashion the message?" Moore also noted that President Barack Obama is “kind of like” Tom Hanks because they're both “nice guys.” (But could he bring the same level of charm that Hanks did to the classic...

When the Country Music Association Awards air Wednesday night on ABC, a new Nashville-style vocalist will make her CMA debut: Gwyneth Paltrow, who is scheduled to perform “Country Strong,” the title track from her upcoming movie of the same name. The Oscar-winner — who established her onscreen pipes in “Duets,” a movie with a plot that only karaoke fanatics could love -- transitions from twang to funky-soul the following week when she makes her much-hyped guest appearance on “Glee.” The track she'll perform on the inescapable Fox series? “Forget You” -- the radio-friendly version of a normally bleep-worthy Cee-Lo Green song. All of this naturally puts more promotional fuel behind the aforementioned film “Country Strong,” in which Paltrow stars as a Nashville diva attempting a comeback. Unless, of course, she somehow blows it during either of these orchestrated TV appearances. But given her talent, that seems unlikely....

Shia LaBeouf tries to find a quiet moment outside D.C.'s Renaissance Hotel. (Photo courtesy Mark Wilkins) 1. Shia LaBeouf takes aim at D.C. photog: We could only get a few minutes of phone time with local paparazzo Mark Wilkins, who was on the receiving end of a cup of Shia LaBeouf's cold coffee this week. The local photog was in high demand after video of the incident hit the web on Friday. In a phone interview, Wilkins tells us he had only been snapping pix of the star -- in town to shoot "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" -- for about three minutes before LaBeouf suprised him with a counter-attack. Did LaBeouf say anything? "Not a word," says Jenkins. "He looked up and saw me, packed up his stuff, then it looked like he was thinking." Apparently, all that thinking led to LaBeouf beaning Wilkins with a cup of...

Three celeb-centric stories on our radar this weekend... 1. A Universal change: Universal Pictures confirmed Friday that it plans to alter the trailer for “The Dilemma” -- an upcoming comedy starring Vince Vaughn and directed by Ron Howard -- because of complaints about its use of the word "gay." In the beginning of the original clip, which was still viewable online as of late Friday afternoon, Vaughn’s character says that “Electric cars are gay. Not homosexual gay, but, you know, my parents-are-chaperoning-the-dance gay.” Both the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and journalist Anderson Cooper advocated for the reference to be removed from the trailer, and the studio ultimately complied. “The teaser trailer for ‘The Dilemma’ was not intended to cause anyone discomfort,” said a statement released Friday by Universal. “In light of growing claims that the introduction to the trailer is insensitive, it is being replaced. A full trailer,...

Three celeb-centric stories on our radar this weekend... Spike Lee at Friday's Washington Ideas Forum. (AP) Lee speaks out: The always quotable Spike Lee was in town this week for the Washington Ideas Forum, a series of interviews with newsmakers and big thinkers co-presented at the Newseum by The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute. In keeping with Lee tradition, he dished out a few juicy sound bites during a Friday morning conversation with historian and journalist Douglas Brinkley. Of the Bush administration’s performance during Hurricane Katrina, he said: “People are dead now because they did not do what they needed to do.” On the BP oil spill, which made its way into his recent HBO documentary, “If God is Willing and da Creek Don’t Rise”: “BP dictated to the United States of America how this thing was going to be run.” On President Obama, a man who took First Lady...